AMD Radeon R9 M380 vs AMD Radeon R9 M385 vs AMD Radeon R9 M370X

AMD Radeon R9 M380

The AMD Radeon R9 M380 is a dedicated mid-range graphics card for laptops. It is based on a 28nm GCN core with 12 compute units and a GDDR5 memory controller. Despite the similar name, the Radeon R7 M380 is a much slower as it features only 10 compute units and DDR3 memory.

Features

Features of the R9-M380 include video decoding for MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and Flash directly by the AMD GPU. Multi-View Codec (MVC) and MPEG-4 part 2 (DivX, xVid) HD videos are compatible as well.

The R9 series also supports automatic graphics switching between the integrated GPU and discrete GPU. Called Enduro, the technology supersedes AMD's Dynamic Switchable Graphics and is similar to Nvidia's Optimus. Furthermore, the M380 can directly support multiple monitors using Eyefinity Technology if Enduro is disabled.

Other features include ZeroCore to reduce the power consumption when the display is turned off and Power Gating to power down areas of the chip that are not used.

The integrated HD audio processor is able to transmit HD Audio (TrueHD or DTS Master Audio) over HDMI and DisplayPort (e.g., for Blu-Ray videos). Additionally, it allows audio output simultaneously and in parallel to multiple devices with the new Discrete Digital Multipoint Audio (DDMA) feature.

AMD Radeon R9 M385

The AMD Radeon R9 M385 is a mid-range notebook graphics card for laptops. It features a GCN (Graphics Core Next) based architecture and is manufactured in 28nm. Up to now only a GFXBench 3.1 OpenGL benchmarks leaked.

The most likely a bit slower Radeon R9 M380 features 12 compute cores clocked at 1 GHz and a GDDR5 memory controller. According to the naming, the performance should be quite similar to it.

AMD Radeon R9 M370X

The AMD Radeon R9 M370X is a mid-range graphics card for laptops that was announced mid 2015. It is used in the high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro with 2 GB GDDR5 graphics memory. It is based on the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture and manufactured in 28nm at TSMC. According to current information, the card is based on the old Cape Verde chip with 640 shaders and an 128 Bit memory interface (GCN 1.0).

Apple states that the card is "up to 80% faster" than the previously used NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. In our benchmarks, the card is only about 30% faster in average 3D gaming and 25 - 30 percent slower than a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M or Radeon R9 M280X. Demanding games (as of 2015) will be usually handled fluently in 1366 x 768 pixels and high settings.